Italian Oil Painting
by Beringae
Summary: I imagined the music you made, crescendo and decrescendo, fortissimo and pianissimo, allegro and andante. Soaring like a bird and flying away. [The story of a shamed woman.]
1. Sinners

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing whatsoever having to do with Pirates of the Caribbean. Nor do I own the wonderful writing style of Sandra Cisneros, which has inspired this particular piece.

-

The old woman on the corner with teeth like crooked houses says we are sinners. She stinks of old urine and stale hair and I can't see any of her beneath her soiled blankets. Only her eyes, the color of red dirt. Hatred in layers and bitterness. She has had a hard life.

Sinners, she says, her mouth a gaping hole in a face like cracked soil. You will all burn in hell for selling your bodies to evil men. God save you.

God save you.

The other girls don't seem to notice. Remember, I want to say, remember when we were children? Remember when we were free?

Where we live is in a house as old as the ancient pelican that sits on the dock some days. A crooked wing. Rheumy eyes. We live in a town named for a turtle. The Spanish sounds strange on my tongue. _Tortuga_.

Everyone comes here.

-

We walk into our home with our bright dresses and sore feet and the men watch us through strange eyes. We sway our hips and our skirts fan out behind us like clouds.

Yours is the one with the mustache. Dirty fingernails. Flinty eyes. Mine is the one with the braids and the big arms. They talk to us like lovers.

Come here, love. How would you like a drink? Come and sit over here. That's alright, a spill never hurt anyone. We'll get you another one.

I'm not talking because I wonder how much he can pay. What did you say?

-

It doesn't hurt most of the time. I pretend to like it because then they give you more money. Sometimes they're too rough and then you scream and Mama Kate rushes in and hits them with a big stick and tells them to leave. We're her girls, she says.

Mama Kate is the first mother I can remember. I've been here for a long time.

She's better than some of the others, the older girls say. We've been around. Mama Kate is pretty damn good compared to some of 'em. You should feel lucky, girl. You can make a lot more money here than the other places. Here she pays you half.

Which is why I tell the men to do whatever they like. Whatever makes them happy. Whatever will pay me the most.

I can't live on nothing. What other way is there in this place?

-

You didn't know, did you? You didn't know what it was like for me here. You just touched my eyelashes and kissed my mouth and left me.

The first time I saw you was in the tavern. You weren't drinking. Everyone else was, but not you.

You were beautiful, like the expensive Italian oil painting I saw when a rich man wanted me in his wife's bed. Black hair, curling like thick wood shavings. Olive and glowing in the dark. You took me upstairs and I didn't mind.

I touched your nipple like a brown walnut and looked at your thin, long legs. You had strong, thick shoulders and delicate collarbones. I remember thinking that was a strange combination.

You said you played the violin. You had artists' hands, slim and brown with calloused fingertips from the strings. I imagined the music you made, crescendo and decrescendo, fortissimo and pianissimo, allegro and andante. Soaring like a bird and flying away.

_Il mio amore. Bella._ You are _mia vita_. _Il mio cielo_.

You talked like cream. Like oil. Smooth.

_L'amo_. I love you.

You said that everyone makes mistakes, sometimes. That you didn't blame me for my life. That you'd take me away.

And then you left me and sailed off. Back to wherever you came from.

And now I live like this. Sinners.

_God save you._

-

**A/N: **And this is how this particular story will continue. Little bits of freeform poetry and short, frequent chapters. We will learn more about our main character, the poor girl, as I write more. I'm not completely sure where this story is going, although I have a rough idea. I don't know if I'll continue much further that a few more chapters, either. Should I? It's all up to you guys, in the end.

Our favorite captain will appear in the next chapter. It _is _Tortuga, after all. How could Jack stay away?

As always, tell me what you think. Nice variation from TFOE?


	2. Witches' Fingers

Chapter: Witches' Fingers

-

There is a sad tree outside my window with branches bare and knobby as a witch's fingers. It's alone in our tiny yard, spiraling up towards the sky. Looking for something. On the nights when I'm not working I stare out the window, my eyes reflected in the cloudy glass.

That damn tree'll die soon, Mama Kate says when she brings me my bath water in a rusty pail.

-

Every day I put on my mask. White powder and red paint. Eyes become smoky and full of false mystery. Lips turn as crimson as a bitter apple skin. Hair curls and gleams.

When I get away from here I want to be a cruel woman. The kind of woman who wears paint on her lips and tight dresses on her body because she wants to. A woman who belongs to no one. I want break the rules.

A woman so beautiful that men beg at her feet but she just pushes them away.

-

Effy who wears pearls and has cracked fingernails from biting. Isabel with the black hair and breasts like white globes in her corset. Jacqueline with eyes the color of dragonflies. Roma of the pale legs and wiry hair.

We are all the same. We all look the same to them. A woman. Faceless.

But only we know that Isabel is afraid of rats. That Effy was raped when she was thirteen. That Roma had a child who died before it came out. Jacqueline has a scar from when a man tried to stab her. Caro likes potatoes—roasted, not boiled.

I am the youngest. They look at my face that does not have wrinkles yet and smile like it hurts.

Child, you're goin' to have a hard life, they say.

-

There is a man here who tells stories and everyone listens. His hands move like frightened birds. He has artists' fingers.

We don't know his name but the other people seem to. Effy gives him his drink and he smiles at her, a wide beam of gold teeth. I sit down to listen.

The pirate who talks of nothing. Of fairies and ghosts, of cursed treasure. Of useless things. He watches me with his eyes, black as a brackish swamp. He is silly. He wastes his time with worthless words.

I go with him upstairs because he asks me to. Because it is what I do.

-

He says he is called Captain Jack Sparrow.

I've heard your name, I say. He just smiles.

-

You gave me a bracelet, remember? I still wear it. Every day. It was from Italy, you said. From Rome, you said.

You must know you never really left me. I can still imagine every part of your face. Every dimple, every bristly hair, every imperfection. Your scent like cinnamon and olives.

I'm waiting. Remember, I'm waiting.

-

I ask him something. What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

I've been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things, love, he says. We are done now. He leaves money on the table.

My Italian oil painting.

What?

My Italian oil painting. The most beautiful thing.

He looks at me like he is looking at a dying animal and leaves more money than I ask him for.

-

The clouds are like wool today, so wispy and pale that you have to squeeze your eyes almost shut to see them. There is a horse walking on the muddy street, hopping on three legs like a carriage with a bent wheel. It's ruined.

Mama Kate brings her shotgun out of the cupboard and goes outside and shoots it in the head. I watch its side move up and down, up and down, until it shudders and then stops.

Mama Kate pays the blacksmith's apprentice a tuppence to get rid of it.

-

Every day I put on my mask. Caro says it makes her beautiful. Effy says it makes her confident. Jacqueline says it makes us look like geishas. Those tiny Japanese ladies that only a person like Jacqueline would have heard of.

I say it helps me hide. It helps me be.

-

**A/N: **Well? How did you like Jack?

Thanks for the wonderful reviews so far. I know right now it doesn't seem like the story is going anywhere, but that's just how this story is going to be, mostly. Plot will pick up a bit, though.


	3. Cover the White

Chapter: Cover the White

-

There is a man sitting near the market who is old and shrunk inside his skin like the oranges that sit too long on the fruit stand, ignored by those who want mangos or breadfruit and not wrinkled old things. His face is like leather and he has mean eyes, sharp as a ragged fingernail.

Come over and give an old man a kiss, eh? He says.

Jacqueline feels sorry for him. She goes over to him and puckers her lips like strawberries ready for his cheek but he pulls her towards him and doesn't let go. Finally I hit him with our basket full of guavas and bananas for Mama Kate and Jacqueline gets away.

Raunchy old bugger, Jacqueline says before she goes.

We leave the fruit in the mud beside the old man, as stark as strips of red and yellow cloth in the dirt. I look over my shoulder and he is peeling back the banana peel like it holds the secret of life. The Holy Grail.

-

The gray of rock buildings. Mud, brown and soft like dead coffee grounds. The brown and black and gray and white of skinny horses. Black smoke from the blacksmith. Sometimes the water is gray, too.

There is no color in this town. No green. I want to walk into a bright, dripping forest and stay there. I want orange. I want red. I want purple. I want rainbows.

One day I steal Caro's paints and smear yellow-red-green-purple-orange on my ceiling to cover the white. It stains my fingernails multi-colored and my dress has to be washed but I don't care.

None of the men ever notice. Mama Kate does, though, and yells at me to wash it off but I never do.

-

Alexandre DeRissou who is French and speaks with an accent. Henry Jameson with eyes like moss and clumsy fingers when he touches my skin. Jack Sparrow with frightened-bird hands and silly stories. Benjamin McArthur of the pale ears.

Every night they come and drink and take us upstairs. Tonight Alex whispers to Isabel and Henry touches Roma's earlobe. Ben strokes Caro like a cat. Jack takes my elbow and we go up to the bed again.

-

My home, Jack says afterwards. In England.

What do you mean?

That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I was a wee boy then, probably just remember it like I do because I'd never been anywhere else, he says.

Oh.

_Oh. _

He sits on the the white bed and looks up at the rainbow ceiling that looks like heaven in this terrible place. You painted, he says.

It was ugly in here, I say. I smile because he is the only other person besides me and Mama Kate who knows.

It suits the room, he says.

Thank you, Jack.

Captain, he says. Captain Sparrow.

You've had me. You know me, I say. I think I should be able to call you by your name.

He is surprised and stares at me with his brackish-swamp eyes, black like memories I don't want to know anymore.

-

You aren't coming back. I know you aren't now. It's been forever. You had black eyes too.

The painting was of a glowing city with channels of dirty water cutting through it like lines on a face. I always picture you in it swimming out to sea. Out to nowhere.

-

Tell be about your Italian oil painting, he says. He's leaving. Him and his laughing eyes.

It was beautiful.

You've said that, he says.

I know. It was. It was perfect. It was mine.

And now?

Now it's gone, I say, and turn my face away.

-

In the morning I go outside with a pail of water for the sad tree. It sloshes against the dry dirt and disappears before I can blink. I look up through the branches that spider across the clouds as thin as silk and feel like saying a prayer.

-

There is a violin's song coming from an open window. A swell and pause of sound. A sweet waver of vibrato. The bow slides like nothing, like air, across the strings. The passion of notes. Of music.

Soon I am crying and the tears lay hot as sour juice against my cheeks. The sky is gray today.

-

**A/N: **Sad. . . More Jack, of course, in this chapter, which is always good.

Anyway, my reviewers get their just reply today. **Dawnie-7**: Wow. . . thanks for the wonderful comments. I'm glad to see all the readers approve of this unconventional style. **zigzag**: Heey! Thank you much, darling. I appreciate your approval of my characterization of Jack. . . he's a little tough to do in this style because I have to tone down the humor a bit. **Sereture**: Don't worry about that; I'll definitely keep this up for as long as it needs to be complete. It's so much fun to write! And updates should come just about everyday because these chapters are veeery short compared to my TFOE ones. . . **hpaddictedg**: Mmm. Thanks. I'm so pleased that everyone likes this style so much! **EternaLei**: You give more compliments than I deserve, dearie! Thanks so much. Personally, I find third person past tense more difficult because I always screw it up and have to go back and edit, but once you get into the flow of writing in whatever tense it kind of falls into place, usually. I'm hoping PG-13 will cut it. . . I'm not planning to have any detailed smutty scenes. **Rampaging Mischief**: Oh my god. . . that is such a wonderful compliment! Sandra Cisneros is an infinitely better writer than me. . .I'm just an admirer. I believe she did write "The Three Wise Guys," I believe, although I haven't read it. If you're looking for more stuff by her definitely read _The House on Mango Street_. **Jack's Sparrow**: A masterpiece? Come on now, darlin' be reasonable. It's just the jumbled thoughts of a teenager underneath everything, really. Wow, thanks so much! Just keep reading anything, that's how I got writing. Read read read. I sound like such a dork but it's true. **OpraNoodlemantra**: I love your name, by the way. . . Johnny Depp forever! Hehe. Well, I'm here to attempt to entrance. It's my job, sorta. Those are some of my favorite lines too. . . there are some good ones in this chapter as well, but I don't think it's quite as good as the first two. Like you, I really liked the Italian oil painting theme, although, in this chapter, you've learned that it's kind of a metaphor for something else :) . **LaLuna**: "Beautiful" was definitely what I had in mind when thinking of this story. I think fanfiction (and myself, come to think of it) sometimes looses sight of the poetry and absolute beauty writing can produce in the struggle to get chapters out fast. Thanks for the amazing praise! **dialtone**: Cisneros is very, very inspirational. I can't get enough of her. Wow, for a writer that is truly a fantastic compliment. Characters, especially when they're not your own (like Jack), are difficult to master inside and out. Also, if I remember correctly, decrescendo and diminuendo are synonyms :). Never hesitate to let me know if anything seems iffy because god knows I always need improvement.


	4. Backward Haven

Chapter: Backward Haven

-

On the day when Mexican blue takes over the sky and raw sienna colors the streets and Venice green is the sea I walk everywhere. I let my legs take me where they will.

The gypsies came two days ago and they make their home outside town. Brown-faced children splash naked on the beach. An old man plays an instrument that I have never seen before and sings in a language that sounds strange to my ears. Woman swathed in fabrics the color of Guatemalan _orquideas_ and Chinese silks. Something is cooking over their fires and its scent is like spice and roasted things. The women look at me as if I am a Spanish conqueror and they are those primeval people that no one hears about anymore, those Aztecs.

They move when they wish, go where they want. They are happy while I am confined to a painted mask.

-

Plagues of everything come to this town. Disease brought by sailors and slaves and women like us.

Today Jacqueline says that between her legs there are blisters like a flower of pink. Mama Kate has the sweating sickness and when I change her bedding it is wet as clothes left outside on the line for dew to claim.

There are awful people on the street. Faces enclosed in bulbous sores. Clawed hands and caved noses. They hobble like shackled animals and the crowd parts for them as smooth as water.

Those is the lepers, Caro says. Like from the bible. They're takin' them away.

I stand at the doorway and watch the sickness pass by in a sea of tumor-skin. People cringe and close their doors like anything could pass between bodies as easily as air. An ancient fear that I can't feel because this place dulls reason

Caro tells me to come inside but I just watch as gaping mouths that no one ever thought could smile do and missing toes don't prevent a steady march.

That is bravery if I ever saw it, I say, and Caro calls me an imbecile and drags me inside to shut the door like everyone else.

-

Three children live here. They run this way and that and no one knows who they belong to. No one remembers who gave birth to them so we are all their mothers. Magdalene who is named after the woman who knew Jesus and has hair as pale and thin as straw. Henry with hands like cherubs and eyes that sparkle like he knows something none of us do. Veriga's father was Asian because her eyes slant like the untouched people in Mongolia who ride ponies across the cold desert.

There are countless ghost babies here, too. Unborn, wasted by a clumsy physician's tools or a makeshift metal stick that the mother made herself. Days old and sick, wailing feebly until Mama Kate takes them and we never hear them anymore.

But the three we have now, the reality, are happy children. They are free to roam the house like hungry puppies until the night comes and then Mama Kate tells them to go in the cellar and sleep in the little cots there because their mamas have work to do.

-

Jack comes again tonight. There is a strange wind outside, cold like a shock of ice water when it hits you, but he comes and everyone forgets because of his stories. After he drinks his rum and says goodbye with a smile we go upstairs like every other night this week.

I wait for him to come to me, to unlace my dress and see how my skin glows in this candlelight, but he stays still like a deer before a lantern and looks out the window at the sad tree. I don't like the quiet.

I watered that tree and then said a prayer, I say. Maybe now it won't die.

He looks at me like I've spoken in some language that he does not know and then laughs, a noise that doesn't sound like it's his. You are the strangest woman I've yet met, love, he says. Who says a prayer when they water a tree?

I do, I say.

He doesn't speak again for a long time.

-

You stood in this room once.

No one knew about us, did they? You remember, don't you, when it was only us in this room that was a backward haven then but now feels like a cage that holds me, a bird without its plume, without color.

You kept everything that was outside away and told me stories of your Italy and your music and every part of you. I never said much because there was nothing to tell. I have no history. My home is here. I hear only what music there is on the streets, none of your sweet violin. I will never taste your Italy.

-

He doesn't touch me. We talk of nothing and he asks me a question, the first. It was always me before. _What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?_

Would you leave this place? He says. His artist hands move against the bristly hairs on his chin.

Yes.

_Yes yes yes yes. YES. _

_Please. _

I could take you, you know. We leave in a day.

_Please. _

He has eyes like a brackish swamp. He has artists' hands that move like frightened birds. He has skin the color of almonds. Jack Sparrow of the swaying walk. He looks like a savior. Like a prophet.

_Take me away. I'm still waiting. _

You could meet us at the docks tomorrow, he says. Where do you want to go?

Where do I want to go. I feel my heart like a heavy drum beating against my ribs like it wants to escape.

_Escape. _

Italy. I want to go to Italy.

-

Before I leave I look outside and the sad tree has let loose an army of green. Tiny leaves that look as fragile as a newborn baby's hand and frail branches, spiraling like a mass of flame against the sky.

-

**A/N: **I apologize for the delay. I've been sick all week and haven't had the energy or the inspiration to write.

I'm not entirely sure this chapter is up to par compared to the last three. Oh well. By the way, next chapter will be the last. I told you this would be short.


	5. Doves and Olive Trees

Chapter: Doves and Olive Trees

-

From my window I see the ocean. It hits the rock cliff like a battering ram and I can hear its roar, as subtle as the quiet before the earth moves, even inside the walls of my little house. The grass is green and it looks like newborn leaves on a dying tree.

I promised myself that I would own a house like this, like an oasis.

-

I walk three miles to a town called Colomba, the word in Italian for "dove". Olive trees dot the hillside like inkblots on an ancient piece of parchment. This place is old.

Doves and olive trees, I think. Peace, I think.

The market here is calm and it reminds me of the nights at sea when the water is smooth and bright as glass. The people move to make way when I ask them to, I am the bow of a ship moving through the ocean.

Grapes like tiny birds' eggs and the yolk is juicy like nothing we ever had at that other place, the place I used to be. Bread and cheese, creamy and smooth as these people's voices when they speak a language that I am only beginning to learn. Red, red wine in translucent green bottles that break when you drop them.

-

There is a man painting in the square of this town that is like antiquity, old and made of worn beige stones. He uses oil paints and I stop to look at his canvas.

Colors swoop and coil to make something that is beautiful like an ocean swell. Natural and flawless curved lines. He paints a yellow-green hill, dry because there has been no rain, with a white cathedral beneath. I look at the real-life portrait, the nature, and find that his version is better.

An Italian oil painting that is not the one I have pictured every day since you left. A perfection that does not include you.

_Bello_, I say. The new word feels like wood on my tongue.

_Grazie_, he says, and doesn't look up from his work.

-

I never found you. You hide still in the orange shadows of this place, this Italy that you love so much.

But I don't need you anymore. I don't need your memory to keep the nightmares of this world at bay.

Remember. Remember, my love, when you were lost. Remember when I let you go. Remember, now, that I am forgetting.

-

The silver-green and walnut-brown of olive trees against a kimono-blue sky. The sunrise here is iridescent, purple and red and yellow and orange like my old heaven-ceiling. The only white is in the clouds.

I've lived here for months but there is no time in this place, only land and life and color.

-

He comes again, I see him as a dark blotch against the yellow of the path. After all this time he comes. I turn my back and go into my little house. He opens the door without knocking.

I remember what the hours and days were like on his ship. Freedom. He gave me freedom and now he wants something in return.

Why are you here? I say.

His brackish-swamp eyes are tired and sad. He is never sad.

You're living here all alone, love, he says. Why? I told you to stay on the ship. I told you it would be better than this.

What could be better than this, Jack?

He doesn't like it when I say his name. He is quiet for a while now and looks at my little house, my little stove and my little bed in the corner.

There is another reason, he says. There is another reason why you should come with me.

I am not talking but I know what he is trying to say with his eyes.

_You are the strangest woman I've yet met, love. _

_That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen._

_Tell be about your Italian oil painting._

_Would you leave this place?_

You shouldn't waste your time with silly affection, Jack. Love is not an emotion that I want to know again, not this time, I say.

He leaves without saying goodbye and I can see the grief he lets stay behind.

-

_When I get away from here I want to be a cruel woman. The kind of woman who wears paint on her lips and tight dresses on her body because she wants to. A woman who belongs to no one. I want break the rules._

_A woman so beautiful that men beg at her feet but she just pushes them away. _

_-_

**A/N: **And thus the end of Italian Oil Painting has arrived. Short and sweet. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I hope all of your questions about plot, etc. were answered within the story.


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